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Timeline of London (20th century) facts for kids

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Main article: Timeline of London

The following is a timeline of the history of London in the 20th century, the capital of England and the United Kingdom.

1900 to 1909

Main article: History of London (1900–1939)
  • 1900
  • 1901
    • 2 February: The funeral procession of Queen Victoria takes place from Victoria station to Paddington station.
    • 21 February: The Apollo Theatre opens on Shaftesbury Avenue.
    • 12 March: The Whitechapel Art Gallery, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opens.
    • 1 April: The United Kingdom Census 1901 takes place. London's population is over 4.5 million in the central area and over 6.6 million in the greater metropolitan area.
    • 4 April: Electric trams are introduced.
    • 18 May: Alexandra Palace opens to the public.
    • 20 June: Edward Elgar premières his concert overture Cockaigne (In London Town) at the Queen's Hall.
    • 29 June: The Horniman Museum, designed by Charles Harrison Townsend, opens in Forest Hill.
    • 5 August: Britain's first permanent cinema opens in Islington.
    • 20 November: The Metropolitan Borough of Kensington is granted royal status by charter.
    • Ealing Tenants begin the development of the Brentham Garden Suburb housing cooperative.
    • The London County Council begins the development of the Norbury Estate, the first beyond its boundaries at this time.
    • The London County Council takes over the blue plaque scheme from the Society of Arts.
    • The Hackney Empire opens as a music hall.
    • Will Barker begins making moving pictures in London.
  • 1902
  • 1903
    • 27 January: A fire at Colney Hatch Lunatic Asylum kills 51 people.
    • 6 March: The Tyburn Convent and Shrine of the Martyrs is established by the Adorers of the Sacred Heart of Montmartre.
    • 21 April: The new Baltic Exchange (building) opens in the City.
    • 20 May: The new Kew Bridge is opened by King Edward VII.
    • By June: The Roman Catholic Westminster Cathedral is opened.
    • June–August, London's wettest summer and year is recorded at Kew Gardens.
    • 18 June: An explosion at Royal Arsenal, Woolwich kills 16 people.
    • 23–27 June: The Royal Agricultural Society of England holds its annual show at its Park Royal ground for the first time. Although this is intended to be a permanent site, the RAS sells it after 3 years.
    • August: 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party moves from Brussels to London.
    • 2 November: The tabloid national newspaper Daily Mirror begins publication.
    • November: The London County Council erects its first blue plaque, to the historian Thomas Babington Macaulay, who died in 1859, at Holly Lodge, Campden Hill.
    • 16 December: The London County Council erects its earliest surviving blue plaque, to the novelist Charles Dickens, who died in 1870, on his former home in Doughty Street.
    • The London County Council's Latchmere Estate opens in Battersea, making it the first public housing in the United Kingdom to be built using a council's own direct labour force.
    • William Foyle and his brother Gilbert establish the bookselling business of Foyles.
    • The Pepys Club is founded.
    • Clement's Inn, last of the Inns of Chancery, is dissolved and demolished to make way for the redevelopment of Aldwych.
  • 1904
    • 9 February: The 1904 City of London by-election is held.
    • 22 March: G. K. Chesterton's novel The Napoleon of Notting Hill is published.
    • 25 April: Herbert Beerbohm Tree establishes an Academy of Dramatic Art, which will become RADA, at His Majesty's Theatre in the Haymarket.
    • 9 June: The London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) performs its first concert.
    • 4 July: The branch railway to the original Uxbridge station is opened by the Metropolitan Railway.
    • 15 August: The Metropolitan Fire Brigade is renamed as the London Fire Brigade.
    • 1 September: Brentford F.C. first plays at Griffin Park.
    • 11 October: The Loftus Road Stadium is first used by Shepherd's Bush F.C.
    • Late October: The first members of what will become the Bloomsbury Group move to the Bloomsbury district.
    • ca. November: The Finchley fire brigade becomes the first to take delivery of a petrol-engined self-propelled motor fire pump.
    • 24 December: The Coliseum Theatre opens.
    • 27 December: The première of J. M. Barrie's play Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up takes place at the Duke of York's Theatre; it is published as a novel in 1911.
  • 1905
    • February: Lots Road Power Station begins generating electricity for the Underground Group railways and tramways. Through the year, the District Railway and Circle line convert their passenger operations from steam to electric trains.
    • 1 May: The Anglican Diocese of Southwark created, which raises the Church of St Saviour and St Mary Overie to the dignity of Southwark Cathedral, and Edward Talbot is consecrated as the first bishop.
    • 10 March: Chelsea Football Club is founded.
    • 6 May: The Naval, Shipping and Fisheries Exhibition opens at Earl's Court.
    • 12 May: The Natural History Museum unveils its popular exhibit of "Dippy", an exact replica of the skeleton of the Diplodocus carnegii dinosaur.
    • 18 October: The London County Council's new street at Kingsway and the redevelopment of Aldwych are opened.
    • 21 October: Henry Wood first conducts a performance of his Fantasia on British Sea Songs at a Trafalgar Day concert.
  • 1906
  • 1907
  • 1908
    • 26 May–October: The Franco-British Exhibition is held at what becomes known as White City in Shepherd's Bush.
    • 12 June: The Rotherhithe Tunnel opens to road traffic and pedestrians.
    • 13 June: The Women's suffrage march and rally takes place at the Royal Albert Hall.
    • June: The distinctive 'bar and circle' design of station nameboards is introduced on the London Underground.
    • 13–25 July: The 1908 Summer Olympics is held at the White City Stadium as part of the Franco-British Exhibition and of a festival of sport that began on 14 May. The marathon is run on 24 July, and figure skating events are held in Knightsbridge on 28–29 October.
    • 19 July: The Metropolitan Railway converts the last of its steam-hauled passenger services south of Harrow to electric operation.
    • October: The first Ideal Home Exhibition is held at Olympia sponsored by the Daily Mail newspaper.
    • November: Horace, Eustace and Oswald Short found Short Brothers in Battersea, making it the first aircraft manufacturing company in England.
    • The first illuminated advertising sign at Piccadilly Circus is for Perrier.
  • 1909

1910 to 1919

  • 1910
  • 1911
  • 1912
    • 1 January:
      • The Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERCL) takes over the London General Omnibus Company, which leads to the widespread adoption of the 'bar and circle' logo in publicity.
      • The General Post Office takes over the whole business of the National Telephone Company.
    • 1 March: Suffragettes smash shop windows in the West End, especially around Oxford Street.
    • 21 March: London Museum inaugurated in Kensington Palace (opens to public 8 April).
    • 30 March: The Boat Race is abandoned after both crews sink. It is restarted on 1 April, and Oxford win.
    • April/May: Thousands of Jewish workers in the West End garment trade strike, followed by thousands more in the East End inspired by Rudolf Rocker.
    • May: The East Finchley Picturedrome, built in 1910, opens as a cinema.
    • 1 May: The Statue of Peter Pan appears in Kensington Gardens.
    • June: The Cheapside Hoard of early 17th-century jewellery is found in the City and secured for the new London Museum.
    • 10 August: Frank McClean flies a Short Brothers floatplane up the Thames between the upper and lower spans of Tower Bridge and underneath London Bridge.
    • 26 October: The Woolwich foot tunnel opens under the Thames.
  • 1913
  • 1914
    • March: The London Group hold their first art exhibition at the Goupil Gallery.
    • 10 March: The suffragette Mary Richardson damages the Velázquez painting the Rokeby Venus in the National Gallery with a meat cleaver.
    • 2 April: The Geffrye Museum is opened in Shoreditch by the London County Council.
    • 4 May: The suffragette Mary Wood attacks John Singer Sargent's portrait of Henry James at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition with a meat cleaver. At the same exhibition on 12 May, Gertrude Mary Ansell attacks the recently deceased Hubert von Herkomer's portrait of the Duke of Wellington, and on 26 May, 'Mary Spencer' (Maude Kate Smith) attacks George Clausen's painting Primavera.
    • 8 June: The City Livery Club is founded.
    • 11 June: A suffragette bomb explodes in Westminster Abbey near the coronation chair.
    • 1 July: Isleworth Studios officially opens for film production.
    • 31 July: London Stock Exchange closes until 4 January 1915.
    • 4 August
    • September: The cover of magazine London Opinion first carries the iconic drawing by Alfred Leete of Lord Kitchener with the recruiting slogan Your Country Needs You, used as poster in the London district.
    • 11 September: Reduction in street lighting as an air raid precaution.
    • 14 October: The Royal Flying Corps first permanently stations aircraft at Hounslow Heath Aerodrome.
    • 17 October: Anti-German riots break out in Deptford.
    • 6 November: Carl Hans Lody becomes the first of 11 convicted World War I German spies to be shot at dawn by firing squad in the Tower of London up to 1916.
    • December: The Post office sets up its Home Depot to sort mail for the military and covers 4 acres (1.6 ha) of Regent's Park.
  • 1915
  • 1916
    • 5 June: The School of Oriental Studies is chartered.
    • 3 August:
      • The musical comedy Chu Chin Chow, written, produced, directed and starring Oscar Asche, with music by Frederic Norton, premières at His Majesty's Theatre. It will run for 5 years and a total of 2,238 performances, more than twice as many as any previous musical and a record that will stand for nearly 40 years.
      • Sir Roger Casement is executed by hanging at Pentonville Prison for treason.
    • 28 November: The first bombing of central London by a fixed-wing aircraft takes place when a German LVG C.II biplane drops 6 bombs near Victoria station.
    • Big Ben is silenced until the Armistice of 11 November 1918.
    • The Underground Electric Railways Company of London adopts Johnston (typeface) as part of its corporate identity.
  • 1917
    • 19 January: Silvertown explosion: a blast at a munitions factory in east London kills 73 people and injures over 400 people. The resulting fire causes over £2,000,000 worth of damage.
    • April: Leonard and Virginia Woolf take delivery of the hand printing press they require to establish the Hogarth Press at their home, Hogarth House in Richmond upon Thames.
    • 4/5 May: Cleopatra's Needle is damaged by bombs dropped on London by fixed-wing aircraft.
    • 6/7 May: 1 person is killed by a bomb dropped on London by a fixed-wing aircraft.
    • 7 May: The mass explosion of mines in the Battle of Messines on the Western Front (World War I) can be felt in London.
    • 13 June: Daylight bombing raid on the London area by fixed-wing aircraft: 162 people are killed, including at least 18 children in a primary school in Poplar and considerable damage to Liverpool Street station.
    • 7 July: A bomb damages the Ironmongers' Hall beyond repair.
    • 15 August: American troops march through London.
    • 19 October: The worst Zeppelin bombing of London takes place, killing 32 people: 7 in Piccadilly, 10 in Camberwell and 15 in Hither Green.
    • 23 December: The London Fire Brigade last uses a steam fire engine, at a fire in Southampton Street, Peckham.
    • The Ivy restaurant is opened by Abel Giandellini.
    • The London postal districts are subdivided by numbers.
  • 1918
    • 28 January: Night of unusually heavy bombing in London and south-east England.
    • 17 February: Bomb damage to St Pancras railway station.
    • March 7: A single bomb destroys 4 4-storey houses in Paddington.
    • 30 August: Strike of 20,000 London policemen with demands of increased pay and union recognition.
    • 27 October–2 November: 2,200 deaths in London over this period due to the "Spanish flu".
    • 11 November: The Armistice: World War I ends at 11.00. From 1919, a minute's silence on this date commemorates the lives lost; this is increased to 2 minutes after World War II.
    • The British Antique Dealers' Association is headquartered in London.
    • The South Suburban Co-operative Society, a consumers' co-operative, is formed by merger of the Croydon Co-operative Society, which was established in 1887, with others.
  • 1919
    • 27 February: Princess Patricia of Connaught is married to Commander The Hon. Alexander Ramsay, making this the first royal wedding at Westminster Abbey since the 14th century.
    • March: The "Battle of Bow Street" takes place between North American servicemen and the Metropolitan Police.
    • 18 July: The Cenotaph, Whitehall is unveiled as a temporary memorial.
    • 31 July: Police strike in London and Liverpool for recognition of the National Union of Police and Prison officers; over 2,000 strikers are dismissed.
    • 25 August: The Aircraft Transport and Travel airline begins operating its daily route to Paris–Le Bourget Airport from Hounslow Heath Aerodrome.
    • 12 September: The first gold fixing takes place in the City of London. From later this month until 2004, it takes place in the N M Rothschild & Sons offices in New Court, St Swithin's Lane.
    • 30 September: The compositors and pressmen working at the Daily Sketch newspaper refuse to print the paper until an editorial criticising an ongoing railway strike is deleted.
    • September: The London County Council admits its first adult students to its literary institutes, of which the City Literary Institute will be the only survivor.
    • October: The "Mobile Patrol Experiment", forerunner of the Metropolitan Police Service's Flying Squad, is created.
    • 30 December: Lincoln's Inn admits its first female bar student.
    • Of the 13,794 hackney carriages licensed to ply for hire this year, less than 2,000 are horse-drawn.
    • The construction of the Wormholt Estate in Hammersmith, a pioneering example of postwar public housing in the United Kingdom, begins.

1920 to 1929

  • 1920
  • 1921
    • 26 April: The police patrol London on motorcycles for the first time.
    • 6 June: Southwark Bridge opens.
    • 19 June: The Greater London population is 7,476,168.
    • 8 July: The Port of London Authority opens King George V Dock, the last of London's upstream enclosed docks to be constructed.
    • 1 September: The Poplar Rates Rebellion takes place, led by George Lansbury. The Borough council in Poplar withholds collection of part of its rates, which leads to 6 weeks’ imprisonment for 30 councillors, including 7 women, and hasty passage of The London Authorities (Financial Provision) Act through Parliament to equalise tax burdens between rich and poor boroughs.
    • 9 September: Charlie Chaplin visits London, where he was probably born in 1889, and is met by thousands of people.
    • The London County Council begins the construction of a large estate of public housing in Bellingham. It is followed by the nearby Downham Estate from 1924.
    • The total length of tramways in Greater London is 350 miles.
    • Around 400 passengers a week fly from Croydon aerodrome to Paris, Brussels, and Amsterdam.
  • 1922
  • 1923
    • 28 April: The Empire Stadium, Wembley, opens to the public for the first time and holds the FA Cup Final between Bolton Wanderers and London club West Ham United football clubs. Crowds are cleared from the pitch by mounted police, including one on a white horse. Bolton win.
    • September: T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land (1922) is first published in Britain in book form complete with notes in a limited edition by the Hogarth Press of Richmond upon Thames. This is run by Eliot's Bloomsbury Group friends Leonard and Virginia Woolf, with the type handset by Virginia being completed in July.
    • 27 November: The City and South London Railway Tube tunnel, which is under reconstruction, collapses under Newington Causeway.
  • 1924
    • 1 February: The 1924 City of London by-election is held.
    • 2 February: A substantially rewritten version of Roi Cooper Megrue and Walter C. Hackett's 1914 farce It Pays to Advertise in a new production by actor-manager Tom Walls opens at the Aldwych Theatre. It runs until 10 July 1925 for a total of 598 performances, and it is the first of a sequence of 12 "Aldwych farces".
    • March: Leonard and Virginia Woolf move themselves and the Hogarth Press back to a house in Bloomsbury at 52 Tavistock Square.
    • 31 March: The last of 1,702 new steam locomotives is built at Stratford Works, a GER Class L77 for suburban services from Liverpool Street station. This is the last full-size locomotive built in London.
    • 20 April: The opening of a Euston–Camden Town link connects the previously separate City & South London and Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Tube railways.
    • 23 April: The British Empire Exhibition opens at Wembley for the first of 2 seasons.
  • 1925
    • February: The statue of Eros is taken away from Piccadilly Circus so that the new Underground station can be built. It is temporarily located in Victoria Embankment Gardens until returned in 1931.
    • 14 May: Virginia Woolf's novel Mrs Dalloway is published by the Hogarth Press in Bloomsbury. Woolf is beginning work on To the Lighthouse.
    • 19 May: Jacob Epstein's Rima, the Hudson memorial, is unveiled in Hyde Park by the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, who is among those disconcerted by the sculpture's modernity.
    • 13 June: The Metropolitan Water Board's Queen Mary Reservoir opens in Middlesex.
    • 22 July: The first of Ben Travers' "Aldwych farces", A Cuckoo in the Nest, opens at the Aldwych Theatre.
    • 2 October
    • The West African Students' Union is established.
  • 1926
    • 16 January: A BBC radio play about a worker's revolution in London causes a panic among those who have not heard the preliminary announcement that it is a satire on broadcasting.
    • 26 January: John Logie Baird demonstrates his television system from a room in Frith Street, Soho. In 1928, Selfridges sell the first set.
    • 9 February: Flooding in London suburbs.
    • c. February: The K2 red telephone box, designed by Giles Gilbert Scott, is introduced, chiefly in the London area.
    • 3–12 May: The 1926 United Kingdom general strike takes place.
    • 13 September: An extension of the London Underground Tube line from Clapham Common to Morden and a new link under the Thames between Kennington and Charing Cross complete a through rail route between Morden and Edgware. of 19.32 mi. (31.94 km). This is initially known as the Edgware, Highgate & Morden line, and later the Northern line, and the station buildings for the Morden extension are the first significant designs for the network by the architect Charles Holden.
    • 23 October: The Fazal Mosque, the first purpose-built in London and the first Ahmadiyya mosque in Britain, is completed.
  • 1927
    • 14 February: Alfred Hitchcock's silent film thriller The Lodger: A Story of the London Fog released.
    • 25 March: Evelyn Sharp's The London Child, which deals with the plight of slum children, is published.
    • 12 May: The police raid the London office of the Soviet trading company ARCOS.
    • 29 May: 120,000 people welcome Charles Lindbergh to Croydon Airport.
    • 7 October: The death of Anglo-Irish businessman and philanthropist Edward Guinness, 1st Earl of Iveagh takes place at Grosvenor Place. He leaves Kenwood House on Hampstead Heath to the nation as a museum for his art collection, the "Iveagh Bequest", and the surrounding estate is added to the Heath to preserve it from housing development, opening to the public in 1928.
    • 3 December: The Post Office Railway, a private Tube line for carrying mail, opens.
    • 21 December ("Slippery Wednesday"): 1,600 people are hospitalised in London when they hurt themselves on the icy streets. There is a White Christmas.
  • 1928
    • 6–7 January: The 1928 Thames flood, caused by a storm surge meeting a high river level due to snowmelt, strikes, and 14 people drown. On 7 January, the moat at the Tower of London, which was drained in 1843 and planted with grass, is completely refilled, and the basement of the Tate Gallery floods.
    • March: The Science Museum opens in its own building in Exhibition Road.
    • 3 September: Alexander Fleming accidentally rediscovers the antibiotic Penicillin at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington.
    • October: The Firestone Tyre Factory, designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners in Art Deco style, opens on the 'Golden Mile' of the Great West Road.
    • 20 December: Gas explosion in High Holborn.
    • British Home Stores (BHS) opens its first department store in Brixton.
    • The first police boxes with telephones are erected in London.
  • 1929
    • 3 March: Ludgate Hill railway station closes to passengers.
    • 14 May: The Grosvenor House Hotel opens on Park Lane.
    • 5 July: Heston Air Park opens.
    • 20 September: Clarence Hatry confesses to financial forgery.
    • 3 October: The Dominion Theatre opens on Tottenham Court Road.
    • 28 October: There is a sharp fall on the London Stock Exchange following a similar crash on Wall Street in New York City on 24 October.
    • 1 December: The Underground Electric Railways Company of London, designed by Charles Holden, officially opens its notable new headquarters building at 55 Broadway above St James's Park station, incorporating sculptures by Jacob Epstein, Eric Gill and Henry Moore.
    • The Oxo Tower is completed in Southwark.
    • First Tesco grocery store is opened in Burnt Oak, Edgware by Jack Cohen.
    • Foyles bookshop moves to its new larger premises in the Foyles Building on Charing Cross Road.
    • The author J. M. Barrie donates the copyrights of his play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up to Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children. By special legislation, the hospital continues to benefit from royalties in perpetuity.

1930 to 1939

  • 1930
    • 9 March: The BBC radio station 2LO becomes the London Regional Programme.
    • June: Harmondsworth Aerodrome at Heathrow begins operating.
    • 29 September: The Whitehall Theatre opens.
    • 15 October: The New Victoria Cinema and variety theatre opens.
    • The new offices for Crawford's Advertising Agency at 233 High Holborn, designed by Frederick Etchells with Herbert A. Welch, are London's earliest significant example of the International Style in architecture.
  • 1931
    • 6 January: Sadler's Wells Theatre reopens under the management of Lilian Baylis.
    • 13 March: The League of Coloured Peoples is founded.
    • 18 April: The Dorchester hotel opens on Park Lane.
    • 26 April: The UK Census takes place. London's population is 4,397,003 in the county and 8,203,942 in Greater London.
    • 5 May: The Vic-Wells Ballet, later to become The Royal Ballet, debuts.
    • 15 May: Shoppers in Bayswater escape with their lives when a chemical factory explodes.
    • 16 May: The London United Tramways introduce the first trolleybuses in London between Twickenham and Teddington.
    • 23 May: The Zoological Society of London opens Whipsnade Zoo in Bedfordshire.
    • 19 July: Sudbury Town station on the London Underground's Piccadilly line opens as rebuilt by Charles Holden, making it the first of his iconic modern designs for the network.
    • 7 September
      • The Second round Table Conference on the constitutional future of India opens in London with Mahatma Gandhi representing the Indian National Congress.
      • The Gala Cinema, Tooting opens with a spectacular interior.
    • October: The first vehicle, a light truck, comes off the Ford Dagenham production line.
    • 12 November: The Abbey Road Studios are opened by Sir Edward Elgar.
    • 21 November: The infamous Red-and-White Party, given by Arthur Jeffress in Maud Allan's Regent's Park townhouse, marks the end of the "Bright young things" subculture in Britain.
    • 27 December: The statue of Eros returns to Piccadilly Circus after a nine-year absence.
    • Daily Express Building in Fleet Street constructed.
  • 1932
    • 3 February: The Windmill Theatre in Soho opens as a revue venue (closes 1964).
    • 8 March: The Honourable Company of Master Mariners, formed on 25 June 1926, becomes the first City livery company to be granted this status since 1746.
    • 10 March: Victoria Coach Station opens.
    • 15 March: The first BBC radio broadcast comes from the new Broadcasting House, and all programmes transfer from Savoy Hill on 15 May.
    • 19 July: The replacement Lambeth Bridge opens.
    • Summer: The Open Air Theatre, Regent's Park is established as a regular venue.
    • October: The Courtauld Institute of Art opens.
    • 7 October: The London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) makes its debut, at the Queen's Hall.
    • 27 October: The arrival of the National Hunger March in London leads to several violent clashes with police.
    • 10 December: The branch railway to Stanmore is opened by the Metropolitan Railway (it transfers to the Bakerloo line, then to the Jubilee line by 1979).
    • The Hoover Building on the Western Avenue in Perivale is designed by Wallis, Gilbert and Partners in Art Deco style.
    • Ford of Britain begins Fordson tractor production at Dagenham.
    • Queen Mary's Rose Garden is laid out in Regent's Park in place of the Royal Botanic Society's gardens.
    • The Jewish Museum London is founded.
  • 1933
  • 1934
  • 1935
    • January: The London County Council launches a green belt scheme.
    • 3 July: The Geological Museum opens in a new building in Exhibition Road, South Kensington.
    • 13 July: The London County Council's Becontree estate, the largest housing estate in the world, is officially completed, consisting of some 27,000 new council houses, which are home to more than 100,000 people. This is marked by the opening of Parsloes Park. The first families had moved to the estate, which straddles the borders of Dagenham, Barking and Ilford, in 1921.
    • 30 September: The Municipal Borough of Bexley is chartered.
    • The following further notable examples of modern architecture are completed: Hornsey Town Hall, by Reginald Uren; Highpoint I flats, Highgate, by Lubetkin and Arup; and houses in Kerry Avenue, Stanmore.
  • 1936
    • 6 June: The Beehive, Gatwick Airport terminal opens in West Sussex.
    • 7 July: The Imperial War Museum opens in the adapted buildings of Bethlem Royal Hospital in Geraldine Mary Harmsworth Park, Southwark.
    • 4 October: The Battle of Cable Street takes place in the East End between Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists and anti-fascist demonstrators.
    • 13 October: The Night Ferry railway service is inaugurated between Paris and London, serving Victoria station (until 1980).
    • 31 October: The Jarrow March of 207 miners from Jarrow arrive in London on a protest against unemployment and poverty.
    • 2 November: The BBC launch the world's first regular "high definition" television service, broadcast from Alexandra Palace.
    • 30 November: The Crystal Palace is destroyed in a fire.
    • 9 December: A KLM (Netherlands airline) Douglas DC-2 airliner crashes in Purley shortly after takeoff from Croydon Airport, killing 14 passengers, including Juan de la Cierva and Arvid Lindman with just 2 survivors.
    • The new Peter Jones (department store) opens in Sloane Square.
    • The Adelphi Buildings are demolished; the replacement Art Deco building is completed in 1938.
    • The Geographers' Map Co.'s first A to Z Atlas and Guide to London and the Suburbs is published.
  • 1937
    • 20 April: The Granada Cinema, Woolwich, opens.
    • 27 April: The National Maritime Museum opens in Greenwich on the former Royal Hospital School premises.
    • 1–27 May: London's busmen go on strike.
    • 6 May: The replacement Chelsea Bridge opens.
    • 12 May: The Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth takes place in Westminster Abbey.
    • 28 August: The London Underground's Morden–Edgware line is renamed the Northern line.
    • 1 September: The Earls Court Exhibition Centre opens.
    • October:
      • Senate House (University of London), designed by Charles Holden, is completed.
      • Formation of the Euston Road School, a private School of Drawing and Painting originally established in Fitzroy Street by William Coldstream, Claude Rogers and Victor Pasmore; it gives name to the group of naturalist artists associated with it.
    • October–December: Croydon typhoid outbreak of 1937: 341 cases of typhoid fever, of which 43 cases are fatal, resulting from a polluted well in Addington.
    • 16 December: The musical Me and My Girl opens in the West End Victoria Palace Theatre; the dance number "The Lambeth Walk" becomes popular.
    • December: The Hawker Hurricane enters service with the Royal Air Force (RAF) as its first monoplane fighter aircraft with No. 111 Squadron at Northolt.
    • The Dolphin Square flats are completed.
    • Kensal House in Ladbroke Grove, two low-rise blocks of modernist flats for the working class commissioned by the Gas Light and Coke Company and designed by Maxwell Fry, are completed as a prototype for modern urban living.
  • 1938
  • 1939
    • January/February: Poetry London: a Bi-Monthly of Modern Verse and Criticism, founded and edited by Tambimuttu with Dylan Thomas and others, is first published.
    • 3 February: The Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombs 2 London Underground stations.
    • 25 February: The first Anderson shelter is built in London.
    • 29 March: The IRA plants bombs on Hammersmith Bridge.
    • 9 August: The London Passenger Transport Board introduces the first AEC Regent III RT bus into service.
    • 27 August: The Cabinet War Rooms are operational.
    • late August: Most of the paintings in the National Gallery are evacuated to Wales.
    • 1 September: "Operation Pied Piper", the 4-day evacuation of children, begins and central London hospitals are evacuated.
    • 3 September: War is declared by the United Kingdom on Nazi Germany, which begins World War II. Shortly after 11.00, Chamberlain announces this news on BBC Radio, speaking from 10 Downing Street. 20 minutes later, air raid sirens sound in London, but it is a false alarm.
    • 29 September: London population as recorded in the national register of citizens reaches 8,615,254, a figure which will not be exceeded this century.
    • September–December: The Tower of London serves as a general prisoner of war collection centre.
    • The large London County Council estate of flats in White City is completed.

1940 to 1949

  • 1940
    • 5 February: The 1940 City of London by-election is held.
    • 24 August: The first air raid of the war strikes London.
    • 7 September: The Blitz begins with "Black Saturday" bombing of the city by the Luftwaffe, the first of 57 consecutive nights of strategic bombing.
    • 10 September: South Hallsville School (evacuation centre) bombing in Canning Town: at least 77 people, and perhaps 4 times as many, are killed.
    • 13 September: Bombing damages Buckingham Palace and destroys the chapel, but the King and Queen survive without injury and inspect the damage.
    • 15 September: Battle of Britain Day, the climax of the Battle of Britain, in which the Royal Air Force (RAF) resists a mass bombing attack by the Luftwaffe in the skies over London and south east England. Pilot officer Ray Holmes uses his Hawker Hurricane to ram a Dornier Do 17 bomber, causing it to crash on Victoria station.
    • 25 September: The replacement steel Wandsworth Bridge opens across the Thames.
    • Autumn: The War Cabinet begins meeting at the disused Down Street tube station.
    • 13 October: 19 people, mostly Belgian refugees, are killed when a German bomb penetrates Bounds Green station on the Underground, which is being used as an air-raid shelter
    • 14 October: At least 66 people are killed when a German bomb penetrates Balham station on the Underground, which is being used as an air-raid shelter. A double-decker bus falls into the crater.
    • 15 October: Dame Alice Owen's School bombing: around 150 people sheltering in a basement are killed, chiefly through flooding from the New River.
    • 9 November: Church of All Hallows, Twickenham, a partial reconstruction of Christopher Wren's All Hallows Lombard Street (1694–1937), is consecrated.
    • November–March 1942: Tube tunnels built for the Central line's eastern extension are converted into aircraft component factories for Plessey.
    • 29–30 December: The Second Great Fire of London is caused by bombing. More than 160 people and 14 firemen are killed. The Guildhall, St Lawrence Jewry and St Bride's Church are among many buildings badly damaged or destroyed, and the famous photograph St Paul's Survives is taken this morning.
    • The name of the area known as Fitzrovia is first recorded.
  • 1941
    • 11 January: At least 56 people are killed when a German bomb hits Bank Underground station, leaving a large crater in the road at Bank junction.
    • 8 March: At least 34 people are killed when a German bomb hits the Café de Paris nightclub.
    • 16–17 April: Serious bomb damage to railway routes across the Thames, the Metropolitan line, the north transept of St Paul's Cathedral and Chelsea Old Church; and Lord Stamp is among those killed.
    • 18 April: Heaviest air-raid of the year on London.
    • 10–12 May: Bombing guts many notable buildings in London, including the Commons Chamber of the Houses of Parliament, which causes its debates to be relocated to the Lords Chamber; the Queen's Hall, which causes The Proms to be relocated to the Royal Albert Hall; and the Great Synagogue of London, St Clement Danes and St Mary-le-Bow. Westminster Abbey's roof is badly damaged. The intensive period of The Blitz now ends, leaving around 25,000 people dead in London.
    • 17–21 May: Rudolf Hess is detained in the Tower of London, making him the last official state prisoner to be held here.
    • Spring: Noël Coward composes the song "London Pride".
    • August: Patrick Hamilton's darkly comic eve-of-war novel Hangover Square: a tale of darkest Earl's Court is published.
    • 15 August: Josef Jakobs, who parachuted into England as a German spy, is shot by a military firing squad at the Tower of London, making him the last person to be executed here.
  • 1942
    • January: The MARS Group plan for postwar London is published.
    • 11 August: Traffic is admitted onto the new Waterloo Bridge across the Thames.
  • 1943
    • 17 January: Anti-aircraft shrapnel shells kill 23 people and injure 60 people during a raid on London by 118 planes, of which 6 are reported losses.
    • 20 January: Sandhurst Road School Disaster: a bomb kills 38 children and 6 teachers at a school in Catford.
    • 3 March: Bethnal Green tube station disaster: 173 would-be shelterers are crushed to death in a panic.
    • July: The County of London Plan, prepared by J. H. Forshaw and Patrick Abercrombie to guide the London County Council in postwar reconstruction, is published.
  • 1944
    • 21–22 January: Operation Steinbock (the "Baby Blitz"), a nocturnal Luftwaffe bombing offensive chiefly targeted at the Greater London area (continues until May), starts, but on this attack, few aircraft reach the target area.
    • 26 February: The last heavy air-raids by conventional aircraft take place in London.
    • 13 June: The first V-1 flying bomb attack on London takes place, and 8 civilians are killed when one lands in Grove Road, Hackney. The bomb also earns the nickname "doodlebug".
    • 18 June: A V-1 flying bomb hits the Guards Chapel, Wellington Barracks, killing 121 people.
    • July: Deep-level shelters that were built in 1941–2 are opened to the public.
    • 12 August: The V-1 flying bomb campaign against London by the Germans reaches its 60th day, with more than 6,000 deaths, 17,000 injuries and damage or destruction to around 1,000,000 buildings.
    • 8 September: The first V-2 rocket attack (launched from The Hague) strikes London, where it strikes in the Chiswick district and resulting in the deaths of 3 people.
    • October:
    • 25 November: A V-2 rocket destroys the Woolworths store in New Cross Road and kills 168 people, the highest death toll from one of these weapons. More than 100 people survive with injuries.
    • 14 December: Town planner Patrick Abercrombie publishes the Greater London Plan.
    • The Ministry of Works builds the first demonstration prefabs, designed to provide temporary postwar housing, in Northolt; another is exhibited in the summer outside the Tate Gallery on Millbank.
    • Hubert Gregg composes the song "Maybe It's Because I'm a Londoner".
  • 1945
    • 8 March: A V-2 rocket hits Smithfield Market and kills 110 people.
    • 27 March: Last day of V-2 rocket attacks on London. One hits Hughes Mansions, Stepney and kills 134 people and the last falls in Orpington with 1 fatality.
    • April: Sybil Campbell is appointed as a stipendiary magistrate in London, making her the first woman to become a professional judge in the UK.
    • 8 May: V-E Day. Crowds in London celebrate the end of World War II in Europe.
    • 17 July: Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia, is born in Claridge's hotel.
    • 26 July: 1945 United Kingdom general election (5 July) results declared. As part of a national landslide, Labour take 21 London constituencies from the Conservatives.
    • July: London women begin to campaign against the necessity to queue for goods in short supply.
    • 15 August: V-J Day. Crowds in London celebrate the end of World War II.
    • 2 October: London Underground introduces fluorescent lighting on the westbound Piccadilly line platforms at Piccadilly Circus.
  • 1946
  • 1947
    • 23 February: Ealing Studios release the film Hue and Cry, filmed largely on location in London and regarded as the first of the Ealing Comedies.
    • 5 May: The Central line is extended from Stratford to Leytonstone.
    • 15 May: London Philharmonic Choir makes its debut, at the Royal Albert Hall.
    • 5 November: Guy the Gorilla arrives at London Zoo.
    • 20 November: Wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip Mountbatten, Duke of Edinburgh: Princess Elizabeth (later Queen Elizabeth II, and the daughter of George VI) marries The Duke of Edinburgh at Westminster Abbey.
    • December: The tradition of a Christmas tree donated by Norway for Trafalgar Square begins.
    • The last horse-drawn hackney carriage operates in London.
  • 1948
  • 1949
    • Early in the year, the Spa Green Estate in Clerkenwell, designed by Berthold Lubetkin of the Tecton Group as a model for postwar public housing, is completed.
    • 26 April: The Ealing Comedy film Passport to Pimlico is premièred in London.
    • 10 May: The first self-service launderette opens on Queensway.
    • 6 July: The London Transport Executive opens the bus stand at Newbury Park tube station.
    • 27 November: Brumas becomes the first polar bear born at London Zoo.
    • Construction of the Woodberry Down estate by the London County Council begins.

1950 to 1959

  • 1950
  • 1951
  • 1952
    • February: Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh return to London from their tour in Kenya after the death of George VI.
    • April: The London Transport Executive opens Stockwell Garage, which has Europe's largest unsupported roof span at this date.
    • 21 May: The Eastcastle Street robbery takes place, in which a post office van is held up in the West End and £287,000 stolen, making it Britain's largest postwar robbery up to this date; the robbers are never caught.
    • 5 July: The last of the original trams in London operates, and the citizens of London turn out in force to say farewell.
    • 8 October: Harrow and Wealdstone rail crash, a multiple collision which claims the lives of 112 people.
    • November: The new Bankside Power Station is commissioned. Also this year, Brunswick Wharf Power Station in Blackwall begins to generate electricity.
    • 25 November: Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap starts its run at the New Ambassadors Theatre. It will still be running in London as of 2022, having transferred next door to St Martin's Theatre in 1974.
    • 4–9 December: The Great Smog blankets London, causing transport chaos and, it is believed, around 4,000 deaths.
    • 30 December: Tower Bridge's bascules are raised as a London Transport bus crosses, and the driver, Albert Gunter, is awarded £10 (£290 in 2022) and a day off for his bravery.
  • 1953
    • 8 April: 12 people are killed in the Stratford tube crash, making this the first major accident on the Tube with passenger fatalities.
    • 2 June: The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II takes place in Westminster Abbey.
    • Civil Service Club founded.
    • The Moka on Frith Street, Soho is the first Italian espresso coffee bar to open in the UK.
  • 1954
    • September: Kidbrooke School in Greenwich opens as England's first purpose-built comprehensive school.
    • 18 September: The marble head of Mithras from the London Mithraeum is unearthed in Walbrook Square.
    • 10 December: The tea clipper Cutty Sark (1869) is towed into a permanent dry dock in Greenwich for preservation.
    • The first UK Wimpy Bar opens at the Lyons Corner House on Coventry Street.
    • Span Developments begin the development of the Cator Estate in Blackheath.
  • 1955
    • 22 September: The first Independent Television franchise covering London, Associated-Rediffusion, begins broadcasting from Croydon transmitting station.
    • 2 December: Barnes rail crash: a collision due to a signal error and consequent fire kills 13 people with another 35 people injured.
    • 8 December: The Ealing Comedy film The Ladykillers is released.
    • 16 December: The new terminal at London Airport is opened by The Queen.
  • 1956
    • January: Battersea Poltergeist first manifests.
    • 24 January: Plans are announced for the construction of thousands of new homes in the Barbican area, which was devastated by the Luftwaffe during World War II.
    • 8 February: London Transport introduces the first (experimental) AEC Routemaster double-deck bus into public service, on route 2. At the 9 November Lord Mayor's Show it forms part of the procession, where it is advertised as "London's Bus Of The Future".
    • 14 March: A memorial to Karl Marx is unveiled at the new site of his grave in Highgate Cemetery by Harry Pollitt, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Great Britain.
    • 28 March: The Crystal Palace transmitting station is brought into use for BBC Television. From its erection until around 1990 it is the tallest structure in London.
    • 22 April: The 2i's Coffee Bar opens in Old Compton Street, Soho; its basement rapidly becomes a pioneering venue for rock and roll music in Britain.
    • 21 May: 24-hour fire in the former Goodge Street deep-level shelter.
    • 5 July: Parliament passes the Clean Air Act in response to the Great Smog of 1952.
    • December: Smog kills around 1000 people.
    • The Leo Baeck College, the first Jewish seminary for Liberal and Reform Judaism in England, opens as the Jewish Theological College of London at West London Synagogue, and its first 2 students are Lionel Blue and Michael Leigh.
    • Pollock's Toy Museum is established.
  • 1957
    • 4 December: Lewisham rail crash on the Southern Region of British Railways: 90 people are killed in a rear-end collision in fog and bridge collapse.
    • 19 December: St Bride's Church is reconsecrated in the presence of The Queen.
    • The first stage of Golden Lane Estate in Finsbury, designed by Chamberlin, Powell and Bon, is officially opened, and Great Arthur House is briefly the tallest residential building in Britain at the time of construction.
    • Michael Young and Peter Willmott's sociological study Family and Kinship in East London is published.
  • 1958
    • 21 March: The London Planetarium, the first in Britain, opens.
    • 19 April: The Marquee Club first opens as a jazz venue.
    • 5 May–19 June: A London bus crew strike takes place.
    • 9 June: Gatwick Airport opens in West Sussex.
    • 10 June: The City of Westminster installs the first regular parking meters in Grosvenor Square following an experimental installation in 1956. Double yellow lines are also introduced in the Metropolitan Police District during the year.
    • 26 July: The presentation of débutantes to the royal court is abolished.
    • 30 August–5 September: The 1958 Notting Hill race riots take place.
    • 26 September: The Austin FX4 taxi is launched.
    • 13 October: Michael Bond's children's story A Bear Called Paddington, introducing the character Paddington Bear, is published.
    • His Clothes is the first boutique to be opened by John Stephen in Carnaby Street.
    • The new store for Barkers of Kensington, which had begun construction in the 1930s, is completed.
  • 1959
    • January
      • Ealing Jazz Club opens.
      • The first Caribbean carnival in Britain is staged at St Pancras Town Hall by Claudia Jones.
    • 6 April: The subscriber trunk dialling telephone code 01 is allocated to London.
    • 23 April: The London Heliport opens adjacent to the Thames in Battersea.
    • 28 May: The Mermaid Theatre opens in the City of London.
    • 30 September
      • The Chiswick flyover is opened by Jayne Mansfield.
      • The last flights take off from the Croydon Aerodrome.
    • 12 October: Large-scale diamond robbery in London.
    • 17 October: The London County Council opens Park Lane Underpass.
    • 30 October: Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club opens in Soho.
    • 11 November: London Transport introduces the production AEC Routemaster double-deck bus into full public service.
    • Bracken House, the Financial Times headquarters in the City of London designed by Sir Albert Richardson, is completed.
    • The London County Council completes the first portion of Alton Estate in Roehampton, considered a model of post-war public housing.
    • London Pride (beer) is first produced at Fuller's Brewery in Chiswick.
    • Colin MacInnes' novel Absolute Beginners is published.

1960 to 1969

1970 to 1979

  • 1970
    • 1 January: The control of London Transport passes from the London Transport Board to the Greater London Council as its London Transport Executive, and London Country Bus Services passes to the National Bus Company.
    • July: Westway opens.
    • 6 July: A major power cut on the London Underground affects 200,000 people, causing them to have to walk through the tunnels to exit the trains.
    • 18 September: Death of Jimi Hendrix: American rock star Jimi Hendrix dies aged 27 at St Mary Abbots Hospital, Kensington, two days after last playing in public.
    • 6 October: BBC Radio London begins broadcasting.
    • 27 November: The Gay Liberation Front organises its first march in London.
    • c. 23 December: The last ship leaves the Surrey Commercial Docks.
    • The City of London Polytechnic, North East London Polytechnic and Thames Polytechnic are formed by mergers.
    • The Whitgift Centre shopping centre and office complex are completed in Croydon.
  • 1971
    • 1 May: A bomb planted by The Angry Brigade explodes in the Biba Kensington store.
    • 21 May: The Polytechnic of Central London formed by merger of previous institutions and is a successor to the 1838 Polytechnic. Also this year, the Polytechnic of North London is founded by merger of the Northern and North-Western polytechnics.
    • 15 February: Decimal Day sees London and the rest of the UK change from the old Pound system into the Pound sterling.
    • 6 June: The London Underground operates its last steam locomotives, which were used for maintenance trains.
    • 14 June: The first Hard Rock Cafe opens near Hyde Park Corner.
    • 23 July: The Victoria line's extension to Brixton is officially opened by Princess Alexandra.
    • 21 October: HMS Belfast (C35) (1939) opens as a museum ship on the Thames.
    • 31 October: A terrorist bomb explodes at the top of the Post Office Tower.
    • 16 December: The trial of the Mangrove Nine, a group of black activists, concludes with them being acquitted of the most serious charge, which was incitement to riot at a 1970 protest against police targeting of the Notting Hill Caribbean restaurant The Mangrove. There is also judicial acknowledgement of behaviour motivated by racial hatred within the Metropolitan Police.
  • 1972
  • 1973
    • 26 February: The Poet laureate John Betjeman's television documentary about the London suburbs, Metro-Land, is broadcast.
    • 3 March: 2 Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombs explode in London, killing 1 person and injuring 250 others.
    • 8 March: Old Bailey bombing, a further IRA attack, kills 1, with a further explosion in Whitehall.
    • 17 March: The rebuilt London Bridge opens.
    • 26 March: Women are admitted to the London Stock Exchange for the first time.
    • March: The Metropolitan Police abolishes its separate A4 (Women's) division and integrates its female officers.
    • 17 April: Robert Mark is appointed Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, continuing his efforts to root out corruption in the CID.
    • 6 June: St Mary's Church, Putney is gutted by fire, which is later revealed to be arson.
    • 23 August: An IRA bomb is found at Baker Street station and is defused, making this the first postwar terrorist targeting of the London Underground. On 8 September, the IRA detonates further bombs, at Victoria Station and in Manchester.
    • 10 September
    • 12 September: Further IRA bombs explode in Oxford Street and Sloane Square.
    • 8 October: LBC begins broadcasting, making it Britain's first independent local radio station.
    • 16 October: Capital Radio begins broadcasting, making it Britain's first legitimate commercial music-based radio station.
    • 20 December: The Ealing Broadway rail crash results in 10 people being killed following a high-speed derailment.
    • Cromwell Tower, the first tower block of the Barbican Estate in the City and at this date London's tallest residential tower at 42 storeys and 123 metres (404 ft) high, is completed.
    • Trellick Tower, GLC social housing in North Kensington designed by Ernő Goldfinger, is completed.
    • Windsor House is built.
    • The Bishop of London moves his official residence from Fulham Palace to The Old Deanery, Dean's Court in the City of London.
    • GSM London is established as the Greenwich School of Management.
  • 1974
  • 1975
    • 28 February: The Moorgate tube crash takes place: 43 are killed when a Northern line train accelerates into a dead end tunnel on the Highbury Branch.
    • 5 May: St Leonard's Church, Streatham is gutted by fire.
    • 2 June: Snow falls at Lord's cricket ground.
    • July: The Allen Hall Seminary is opened by the Catholic province of Westminster on the site of Thomas More's house in Chelsea.
    • 14 August: The heaviest rainfall is recorded in London, where there is 17.8 cm (7 in.) in just 2 hours in Hampstead.
    • 5 September: A Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) bomb explodes at The London Hilton on Park Lane, killing 2 and injuring 63 people.
    • 28 September–3 October: The Spaghetti House siege takes place, during which 9 hostages are taken.
    • 9 October: An IRA bomb explodes outside Green Park tube station, killing 1 person and injuring 20 people.
    • November: A gold sovereign is the last coin to be minted at the Royal Mint's original London location.
    • 18 November: Walton's Restaurant bombing.
    • 6–12 December: The Balcombe Street siege: 4 members of the IRA take hostages before surrendering to the police.
    • The Southwark Towers are built.
  • 1976
  • 1977
    • 24 February: The 1977 City of London and Westminster South by-election is held.
    • 11 April: London Transport's Silver Jubilee AEC Routemaster buses are launched for the Silver Jubilee of Elizabeth II.
    • 5 May: The 1977 Greater London Council election takes place, and the Conservatives secure a substantial majority over Labour.
    • 13 August: "Battle of Lewisham": an attempt by the far-right National Front to march from New Cross to Lewisham leads to counter-demonstrations and violent clashes.
    • 31 August: Enfield poltergeist first manifests.
    • 16 September: Glam rock star Marc Bolan dies in a car crash in Barnes at age 29.
    • 31 October: "Frestonia" attempts to secede from the UK.
    • 23 November: The new premises for the Public Record Office, later The National Archives, opens in Kew.
    • 16 December: The Piccadilly line is extended to Heathrow Central tube station, making it the first metro system in the world to serve an airport.
    • London Hydraulic Power Company closes its last pumping station, in Wapping Wall.
    • The Garden Museum is established at the former church of St Mary-at-Lambeth.
    • J. Lyons and Co. closes its last Corner House restaurant.
  • 1978
    • 8 June: St Mary's Church, Barnes is gutted by fire.
    • 20 August: Gunmen open fire on an Israeli El Al airline bus in London.
    • 1 December–13 November 1979: The Times and The Sunday Times newspapers suspend publication over a dispute by journalists.
    • London Borough of Camden low-rise high-density social housing schemes are completed on Alexandra Road Estate (by Neave Brown) and Branch Hill (by Gordon Benson and Alan Forsyth).
    • The Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper begins publication.
  • 1979
    • 7 April: The last RT type bus runs in London.
    • 1 May: The Jubilee line is inaugurated.
    • 5 September: The funeral of Louis Mountbatten takes place at Westminster Abbey.
    • 14 September: The government announces plans to regenerate the London Docklands with housing and commercial developments.
    • 18 October: The new Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith opens, with the first play being George Bernard Shaw's You Never Can Tell.
    • Stepney City Farm is founded.

1980 to 1989

  • 1980
  • 1981
    • 18 January: 10 people are killed in the New Cross house fire.
    • 29 March: The London Marathon is run for the first time.
    • 11 April: The 1981 Brixton riot takes place.
    • 20 April: More than 100 people are arrested and 15 police officers are injured in clashes with black youths in the Finsbury Park, Forest Green and Ealing areas.
    • 7 May: Ken Livingstone becomes the leader of the Greater London Council after Labour wins the GLC elections.
    • 11 June: The National Westminster Tower opens.
    • 21 June: There is a fire at Goodge Street tube station.
    • 2 July: The London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) is set up.
    • 29 July: The Wedding of Charles, Prince of Wales, and Lady Diana Spencer takes place in St Paul's Cathedral.
    • 4 October: London Transport Executive (GLC) introduces the 'Fares Fair', which sees an average 32% reduction of public transport fares. However, it is declared unlawful on 17 December following legal challenge by London Borough of Bexley.
    • 10 October: Chelsea Barracks is bombed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army, killing 2 people.
    • November: The Port of London Authority closes the Royal Docks, the last functioning upstream docks, to general trade.
    • The Greater London Council public housing stock passes to boroughs.
    • Whiteleys department store in Bayswater closes.
  • 1982
    • 19 January: Billingsgate Fish Market opens on a new site in the Isle of Dogs after having closed its old site in the City 3 days earlier.
    • 3 March: The Barbican Centre opens as an arts and conference venue.
    • 28 May: Pope John Paul II's visit to the United Kingdom begins, and following arrival from Gatwick Airport at Victoria station he attends Mass at Westminster Cathedral. On 29 May, there is an open-air Mass at Wembley Stadium, and on 30 May a meeting at Crystal Palace Stadium with the Polish Catholic community.
    • 3 June: The Israeli ambassador to the UK Shlomo Argov is shot outside the Dorchester Hotel.
    • 17 June: The body of Italian banker Roberto Calvi is found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge.
    • 27 June: Brymon Airways' Captain Harry Gee lands a de Havilland Canada Dash 7 turboprop aircraft on Heron Quays in the nearby West India Docks to demonstrate the feasibility of the STOLport project, the basis of London City Airport. This then officially opens on 5 November 1987.
    • 20 July: The Hyde Park and Regent's Park bombings take place.
    • 12 October: The London Victory Parade of 1982 takes place.
    • October: The Thames Barrier begins operating; it is officially opened on 8 May 1984.
    • The Broadgate development in the City begins.
    • The Black Audio Film Collective is active.
    • London & South Eastern (L&SE) is created by British Rail to provide London suburban services.
  • 1983
    • 4 April: Gunmen escape with £7,000,000 from a Security Express van, making it the biggest cash haul in British history.
    • 16 May: Wheel clamps are first used to combat illegal parking in London.
    • July–August: London temperatures reach and exceed 30 °C (86 °F).
    • 22 September: The Docklands redevelopment begins with the opening of an Enterprise Zone on the Isle of Dogs.
    • 7 October: A plan to abolish the Greater London Council is announced.
    • 21 October: A thanksgiving ceremony takes place in St Martin-in-the-Fields in memory of the late David Niven.
    • 26 November: Brink's-Mat robbery: £26,000,000-worth of gold bullion and other valuables are stolen from a warehouse at the Heathrow International Trading Estate.
    • 17 December: Harrods bombings: a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) car bomb kills 6 people (3 police and 3 members of the public) and injures 90 people outside Harrods. A second bomb on Christmas Day in Oxford Street explodes without injuries.
    • Mary Donaldson becomes the first female Lord Mayor of London, and Sam Beaver King becomes first black mayor of the London Borough of Southwark.
    • Thames Water shuts down the reciprocating stationary steam engines at its Waddon pumping station, the last in Britain to pump drinking water by steam.
    • Chelsea Physic Garden opens to the general public as a heritage attraction for the first time.
    • The Sankofa Film and Video Collective is founded.
  • 1984
  • 1985
    • 6 January: The Capitalcard, predecessor of the Travelcard, is introduced, making it the first season ticket valid on both London Transport and British Rail services.
    • 16 January: The Dorchester Hotel is bought by the Sultan of Brunei.
    • 19 February: Soap opera EastEnders debuts on BBC television.
    • 11 March: Harrods is bought by Mohammed Al Fayed.
    • 13 July: Live Aid takes place at Wembley Stadium alongside a similar performance in Philadelphia.
    • Bedford College merges with Royal Holloway College and moves to the latter's Egham campus.
  • 1986
    • 24 January–5 February 1987: Wapping dispute: employees of News International strike over the transfer of the company's newspaper production to Wapping with the adoption of new technology. Within a year of the strike's collapse, most national newspapers will follow News International's lead in moving from Fleet Street to the Docklands.
    • 31 March
    • 12 April: Heathrow Terminal 4 opens.
    • 10 June: London & South Eastern (L&SE) suburban rail operations rebranded as Network SouthEast (NSE).
    • 27 June: The last train departs from Broad Street station.
    • 11–12 July: Queen perform at Wembley Stadium in front of audiences of 72,000 on each night.
    • 27 October: "Big Bang": deregulation of the London Stock Exchange leads to substantial changes in the City financial markets.
    • 29 October: The M25 motorway (London orbital) is completed, which creates a new de facto definition of the Greater London area.
    • 18 November: Lloyd's building, designed by Richard Rogers, opens.
  • 1987
  • 1988
    • 16 May: Thameslink's north–south cross-London suburban rail services are introduced by Network SouthEast (NSE).
    • July: Surrey Quays Shopping Centre opens on the former site of the Surrey Commercial Docks in Rotherhithe. This leads to a de facto renaming of the surrounding residential area as Surrey Quays.
    • 12 December: 35 people are killed in the Clapham Junction rail crash.
    • Approximate date: Al-Hayat newspaper headquartered in London.
  • 1989
    • 29 June: A replacement sundial column is unveiled at Seven Dials.
    • 20 August: Marchioness disaster: 51 people are killed when the dredger Bowbelle collides with the chartered pleasure boat Marchioness on the Thames near Cannon Street Railway Bridge in the early hours of the morning.
    • October–December: Gates erected across Downing Street.
    • 25 December: The first mass of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church parish in London is celebrated.
    • London's Air Ambulance begins operation.
    • The Design Museum opens in Shad Thames.
    • The management of Hampstead Heath is taken over by Corporation of London.
    • The North East London Polytechnic is renamed as the Polytechnic of East London.
    • Remains of The Rose and Globe Theatre are discovered.
    • After spending most of the decade closed down, Whiteleys re-opens as a shopping centre.
    • Truman's Brewery closes.

1990 to 1999

  • 1990
    • 26 January: The last trains use Holborn Viaduct railway station, and the railway bridge over Ludgate Hill is demolished.
    • 4 March: The first legal terrestrial London specialist independent radio station, Jazz FM, is launched.
    • 31 March: The Poll Tax Riot takes place.
    • 1 April: The Inner London Education Authority is abolished.
    • 2 May: The City bonds robbery takes place.
    • 3 May: The 1990 London local elections take place; in Westminster, these give rise to the homes for votes scandal.
    • 6 May: The STD code 01 is divided between 071 (exchanges in the Central sector) and 081.
    • 10 July: The first Hampton Court Palace Flower Show is opened by Princess Anne.
    • 20 July: A Provisional Irish Republican Army bomb explodes at the Stock Exchange Tower.
    • 1 September: The former "Pirate" radio station Kiss FM relaunches as a licensed broadcaster.
    • Telehouse Europe begins operation of Europe's first purpose-built carrier-neutral colocation centre, in the Docklands, and it becomes the UK's main Internet hub.
  • 1991
  • 1992
    • 28 February: London Bridge station bombing by the IRA.
    • 10 April: Baltic Exchange bombing by the IRA kills 3.
    • September: First Open House London event takes place.
    • October: The University of Greenwich is formed from Thames Polytechnic.
    • 9 October: 2 suspected IRA bombs explode in London, but there are no injuries.
    • November: The University of East London is formed from the Polytechnic of East London.
    • 1 December: The University of Westminster is formed from the Polytechnic of Central London, itself a successor to the 1838 Polytechnic.
    • 10 December: 2 people are injured by IRA bombs in Wood Green. Then on 16 December, 4 people are injured by IRA bombs on Oxford Street.
    • London Guildhall University is formed from the City of London Polytechnic; the University of North London is formed from the Polytechnic of North London; Middlesex University is formed from Middlesex Polytechnic; and Kingston University is formed from Kingston Polytechnic.
    • The Ark office block in Hammersmith, designed by Ralph Erskine, completed.
    • Bramah Tea and Coffee Museum originally opens at Butler's Wharf.
  • 1993
    • 28 January: Harrods bombings: a bomb planted by English IRA sympathisers injures 4 people outside Harrods.
    • 24 April: 1993 Bishopsgate bombing: an IRA truck bomb explodes in the City, killing 1 person and causing £350,000,000 worth of damage.
    • 17 May: The Limehouse Link tunnel opens.
    • 4 August: Millwall F.C.'s New Den stadium opens in Bermondsey.
    • Traffic and Environmental Zone around the City of London is established.
    • The Thames Water Ring Main is completed.
  • 1994
  • 1995
    • 16 April: As part of phONEday in the United Kingdom, London's STD codes 071 and 081 become 0171 and 0181 respectively.
    • 20 August: The BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir London, Europe's first traditional-style purpose-built Hindu temple (and England's largest), is inaugurated in Neasden.
    • 13 December: 1995 Brixton riot.
    • 31 December: London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) powers in Beckton revert to the London Borough of Newham.
    • Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry merge together with Queen Mary and Westfield College.
    • Blackwell's of Oxford open a bookshop on Charing Cross Road.
  • 1996
    • 9 February: 1996 Docklands bombing: A Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) truck bomb explodes at Canary Wharf, killing 2 people. On 18 February an IRA bomb explodes on a bus in central London, killing the transporter, Edward O'Brien, and injuring 8 other people, including the driver. On 15 July an IRA unit plotting to disrupt the London electricity supply is arrested in Operation AIRLINES.
    • 20 December: London Docklands Development Corporation (LDDC) powers in Surrey Docks revert to the London Borough of Southwark.
  • 1997
  • 1998
  • 1999
    • 16 March: The Metro launches as a weekday tabloid free newspaper in London.
    • 14 April: Edgar Pearce, the "Mardi Gra bomber", is convicted for a series of bombings targeted at banks and supermarkets around London and sentenced to 21 years in jail.
    • May: London IMAX cinema opens on the South Bank.
    • 21 May: The film Notting Hill is released.
    • 24 May: The Thames Clippers ferry service starts operating along the Thames to connect Central London with some of its inner suburbs.
    • July
      • The Fourth plinth, Trafalgar Square is first occupied by Mark Wallinger's Ecce Homo.
      • The Green Bridge carries Mile End Park over the Mile End Road.
    • 5 October: The Ladbroke Grove rail crash: 31 people are killed in a collision on the Great Western Main Line (GWML).
    • 31 December: The Millennium Dome on Greenwich Peninsula, the London Eye on the South Bank, and the Jubilee Line Extension serving Canary Wharf tube station are officially opened.
    • The University of Greenwich occupies portions of the Old Royal Naval College.
    • Antony Gormley's sculpture Quantum Cloud is erected on the Greenwich Peninsula.
    • The Cathedral of the Dormition of the Most Holy Mother of God, within the Russian Orthodox Diocese of Great Britain and Ireland, opens in Chiswick.
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Timeline of London (20th century) Facts for Kids. Kiddle Encyclopedia.